How do artistic mergers work?

I just learned from this New York Times article that Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theater Workshop are going to merge into a new company called "New York Live Arts". Wow. I guess I've never thought about arts organizations merging. I thought M&A were for banks and big corporations... so this is fascinating to me.

Looks like Jones' Dance company is the "strong" party and that this new collaboration will help relieve some debt that DTW has taken on when it bought it's building in Chelsea. Each of the organizations had an artistic and an executive director, so four people, but only three will remain (DTW's exec is getting the chop). Sounds like a real M&A deal.

I wonder if this is something that other arts organizations should be doing, especially when we hear about how many of them are struggling and barely staying afloat... BUT... what does this mean for the artistic vision???? In this case they are merging a producer with a presenter, so maybe this will mainly become a home for Jones' company, but DTW have quite a legacy too and their own artistic vision, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Would you be willing to do one of these deals if it meant a stronger financial position for you, your group or your organization? How would you go about dealing with the small issue of artistic vision and leadership? Maybe all artistic collaboration is sort of an M&A deal...hmmm

Tags: Bill T. Jones, Cultural merger, Dance Theater Workshop, New York Live Arts

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Comment by cindy maguire on December 7, 2010 at 10:39am: Interesting write up Devika. I think it's a great idea for arts organizations to look at something such as merging - power in numbers. The issue might be, as you note, around power, artistic vision. Whose voice or voices set the agenda, etc. I feel like there is all this amazing work going on around the world, arts-wise, but so much gets lost because we aren't connected in some way.. love this site for that.
cindy